Origen’s On First Principles is a foundational work in the development of Christian thought and doctrine: it is the first attempt in history at a systematic Christian theology. For over a decade it has been out of print with only expensive used copies available; now it is available at an affordable price and in a more accessible format. On First Principles is the most important surviving text written by third-century Church father, Origen. Origen wrote in a time when fundamental doctrines had not yet been fully articulated by the Church, and contributed to the very formation of Christianity. Readers see Origen grappling with the mysteries of salvation and brainstorming how they can be understood. This edition presents G. W. Butterworth’s trusted translation in a new, more readable format, retains the introduction by Henri de Lubac, and includes a new foreword by John C. Cavadini. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Doctor of the Church, wrote: “Origen is the stone on which all of us were sharpened.”

A History of Preaching brings together narrative history and primary sources to provide the most comprehensive guide available to the story of the church's ministry of proclamation. Bringing together an impressive array of familiar and lesser-known figures, Edwards paints a detailed, compelling picture of what it has meant to preach the gospel. Pastors, scholars, and students of homiletics will find here many opportunities to enrich their understanding and practice of preaching. Ecumenical in scope, fair-minded in presentation, appreciative of the contributions that all the branches of the church have made to the story of what it means to develop, deliver, and listen to a sermon, A History of Preaching will be the definitive resource for anyone who wishes to preach or to understand preaching's role in living out the gospel. Volume 2 contains primary source material on preaching drawn from the entire scope of the church's twenty centuries. The author has written an introduction to each selection, placing it in its historical context and pointing to its particular contribution. Each chapter in Volume 2 is geared to its companion chapter in Volume 1's narrative history. Volume 1, available separately as 9781501833779, contains Edwards's magisterial retelling of the story of Christian preaching's development from its Hellenistic and Jewish roots in the New Testament, through the late-twentieth century's discontent with outdated forms and emphasis on new modes of preaching such as narrative. Along the way the author introduces us to the complexities and contributions of preachers, both with whom we are already acquainted, and to whom we will be introduced here for the first time. Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Bernard, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards, Rauschenbusch, Barth; all of their distinctive contributions receive careful attention. Yet lesser-known figures and developments also appear, from the ninth-century reform of preaching championed by Hrabanus Maurus, to the reference books developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the mendicant orders to assist their members' preaching, to Howell Harris and Daniel Rowlands, preachers of the eighteenth-century Welsh revival, to Helen Kenyon, speaking as a layperson at the 1950 Yale Beecher lectures about the view of preaching from the pew. "...'This work is expected to be the standard text on preaching for the next 30 years,' says Ann K. Riggs, who staffs the NCC's Faith and Order Commission. Author Edwards, former professor of preaching at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, is co-moderator of the commission, which studies church-uniting and church-dividing issues. 'A History of Preaching is ecumenical in scope and will be relevant in all our churches; we all participate in this field,' says Riggs...." from EcuLink, Number 65, Winter 2004-2005 published by the National Council of Churches

A detailed survey of the life and thought of Origen (c.185-254 A.D.), the most important Greek-speaking Christian theologian and Biblical scholar in antiquity. Heine considers how the two urban centers of Alexandria in Egypt and Caesarea in Palestine, and their communities of faith, had a discernable impact on Origen's intellectual work.

This volume brings together thirteen studies on Greek-speaking preachers and audiences in a period from the beginning of the second century A.D. to the beginning of the tenth century which has largely been neglected in the modern literature. The chapters represent a collection of case studies of individual preachers or periods of homiletic activity and cover themes including the identity of Greek-speaking preachers, the circumstances of delivery, the different genres of homiletic, the adaptation of the tropes of Classical approaches, the preparation, redaction and transmission of sermons, and the interaction between preacher and audience. Each chapter is accompanied by a summary bibliography of the most important primary sources and secondary literature.

This book seeks to determine the origins of preaching in Christianity, and to trace its history before Origen. On the basis of a examination of the external evidence for Christian preaching before Origen and of cognate activities in the ancient world which might have influenced Christian practice, and on the basis of a narrative hypothesis on the nature of the development of Christianity, a history is traced by which prophecy gives way to Scripture as the primitive Christian oikos becomes the oikos theou. The homily is seen to emerge from the practice of submitting prophecy to judgement and application, which comes to employ Scripture and in time is employed on Scripture itself. This is the first attempt to answer the questions of how, when and why preaching entered Christian worship.